Maintenance and Enhancement of ISO/IEC 17025 Accreditation and Whole Genome Sequencing for State Food Testing Laboratories Abstract: Over the past several years, the food safety system has continually encountered risks and emergencies of significant national concern. Multiple efforts have been undertaken at all levels, including consumers, industry, regulators, and even international organizations, to identify and implement improvements to the food safety system. These efforts include President's Food Safety Working Group; National Integrated Food Safety System; and Food Safety Modernization Act. The MDH Laboratories Administration has been and will continue participate in the cooperative agreement to advance to goal of national food safety system by supporting and enhancing state's food laboratory activities by 1. Ensuring microbiological and chemical food analyses performed on behalf of the State manufactured food regulatory programs are conducted within the scope of an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited laboratory; 2. Strengthening the collaboration between the laboratories and State manufactured food regulatory programs; 3. Increasing the number of State samples collected and analyzed for surveillance purposes annually; and 4. Developing a stronger international rapid surveillance system for pathogen traceback through the GenomeTrakr network using a minimum set of metadata fields for all food and environmental isolates.